10 Mistakes That Every Amateur Blogger Must Avoid

It is always recommended that a network marketer start his or her own blog, but in a rush to get the ball rolling many newbies overlook some fundamental rules. A hastily built blog will look unprofessional, so here are a number of points that should be considered.

Content

Blogs are all about content and people are often online looking for helpful information. Google wants the internet to remain the "information highway" and not become a gargantuan online shopping mall!

You can't copy other people's content or steal their pics! Articles should be well-written, incorporating keywords in the title and body of the text. Effective keywords will attract organic (free) traffic to your site. When people arrive they will expect to find good, relevant content that is engaging and original and isn't full of spelling errors. Always proofread your work!

Articles should contain plenty of white space by keeping paragraphs to a maximum of four sentences and incorporating bulleted and numbered points wherever possible. It should look easy to read.

Advertisements

Landing on a site that is covered with ads turns many people off. Experiment with ads and keep the number of banners you display to a minimum. If you intend to monetize using Google AdSense make sure you read and understand what you can and cannot do.

The focus of your page should be your article; the advertising should be secondary and not all "above the fold". The layout of your page should also entice a visitor to read your entire article without being distracted by flashing banners, dozens of links, and annoying pop-ups.

Sharing

If you write excellent content people will want to share it with others. Keep your list of social media buttons to a minimum; it's a fact that when people are confronted with too many choices they won't choose anything at all!

Layout & Design

Obviously, you want your site to look attractive but there are a couple of things to bear in mind. People find it easier to read dark type against a light background, the other way around and it's extremely tiring for the eyes.

Your blog should be attractive and allow visitors to navigate to other content easily. If it takes too long to find other articles or content on your site people will simply leave and that's why internal links can be so very useful.

About Me

Many new blog owners overlook the importance of an About Me page. Be loud and proud! Post a photo of yourself and tell people why you're building your blog, your experience, and a little about your life. It doesn't have to be a lot but it's part of the essential trust-building process.

Sign up forms

Sign-up forms come in many shapes. If your sign-up form has been created through your autoresponder system you will know that you can experiment with colors and layout. You will also have a number of different options, you can collect addresses and telephone numbers along with e-mail addresses but unfortunately, the more you ask people the less likely they will be to sign up.

Sign-up forms should be prominent on the page. Try a static sign-up form first and give it a month and see how it's performing. If you're not pleased with the results try using a pop-up form. Many people find these extremely annoying, while some Internet marketers report doubling their sign-up rates. Again you will have to test a number of different options to see what works best for you.

Be Consistent

I tend to bookmark sites that I like and check them regularly - I'm sure I'm not the only one. The problem is some blog owners post new content inconsistently and a few hardly ever.

You must post new content regularly, even if it means sitting down and creating a whole week's content in one sitting. If you use WordPress you can schedule each article to post at a pre-set time every day.

Comments

Allowing people to comment on your blog can give you useful feedback. Unfortunately, if you allow people to leave links back to their own sites, you're going to get a lot of useless comments.

Always moderate and trash irrelevant and stupid comments, there'll be plenty of them. Reward those who take the time to leave constructive comments or criticism simply by thanking them; they are more likely to return.

Excessive Use Of Plugins

As much as most plugins are free, this does not mean you can use them all. Excessive use of unnecessary plugins can result in the slow loading of your page and this can really make visitors leave your site immediately.

Greed!

Don't fall into the thinking that a blog is just there to earn revenue otherwise, you will fail and fail miserably. A lot of amateur bloggers these days think they can create a blog and get rich overnight because of all the paid-for eBooks out there that claim this. However, they don't read the fine lines about how much work it takes to start earning revenue. 

Blogging for revenue usually doesn't start happening until the blog is a year or multiple years old. Don't flood your blog with advertisements and focus on everything that is about making money. 

Focus on getting readers, submitting unique and fresh content, and gaining popularity on the internet first and revenue-earning methods will come to you. If you focus on the cash right at the beginning, it will take a miracle to get you even the basic earnings which won't even really allow the blog to pay for itself.